The Point
by Caliburn
Summary: Filius Flitwick has had his fill of giving the same "Wingardium Leviosa" speech every year. When he left The Dueling Circuit, he did so to teach, not to instruct. He finds someone to pass his knowledge of magic to in Harry Potter. 6th Year AU.
1. The Point of Divergence

He'd never seen that much blood before.

He hoped to never see that much blood again.

Harry's heart pounded in his chest as his legs carried him around a corridor, his feet slipping on the cold stone as the blood left on the bottoms of his shoes ruined any hope he had for traction. Clambering back to his feet, he cleared the intersection of the corridors and continued his frantic running, ducking his head as stone exploded from the wall to his side, just above his head.

He continued to run, weaving through the dark hallways and doing his best to avoid the explosions of rocky shrapnel from the spells being hurled in his direction. His chest was burning, and his leg hadn't avoided every piece of jagged rock from one of the blasts, it would seem. His breathing was labored, but he was running for his life and he knew it, so he knew that he didn't have much time for trivial things such as slowing down to catch a breath, or stopping to check on the piece of rock imbedded in his thigh. He'd been chased enough to know that stopping or slowing down was a bad idea. And he'd been chased enough as a child to know that you never, _ever,_ look back at who's chasing you.

But Harry didn't need to look back. Because every time he dodged one of the spells aimed for him; every time there was an explosion of stone instead of flesh, each time a spell blasted a torch from the wall and sent ashes down a corridor, the man pursuing Harry would scream in increasing anger. It was a voice he knew well, and he could tell by the increasing volume of the literal _howls_ of rage, that the man was either getting closer, or getting increasingly unhappy with the chase. Judging by the increase in the rate of spells fired at him, Harry could only hope it was one of the two, and not both.

As he turned another corner, once more considering the idea that he might be running in circles, Harry noticed a light coming from under one of the doors at the far end of the corridor. He couldn't fathom why anyone would be in a classroom at that late hour, but he was thankful for whatever night owl was working away.

Seeing the door looming in the distance, bright light streaming out from under and above the door as if highlighting its presence, Harry put all of the energy he had left into a final burst of speed toward it. The light illuminated the surroundings just enough for him to get an inkling of where he was, before he slammed into the door going full speed. The doorframe cracked under the impact, and he stumbled into the room just as both sides of the door exploded, sending a cloud of wood and stone shrapnel everywhere. Harry whirled around and tossed his arms up to keep as much of it as possible from his face, which was good strategy as he felt sings of rock and splinters banging into his forearms.

A displacement of the plume of dust and destroyed rock was Harry's only warning of the incoming spell. He was able to move enough that it wouldn't have hit him dead on, but it still would have possibly killed him were it not for Professor Flitwick pushing into the boy's legs, sending him stumbling to the side and out of the worst of the spell's path. Falling to the ground, Harry pulled his right arm up to him, staring at the glimpses of bone he was able to see between the gushing blood from the wound caused by the spell.

He knew the spell well. He had used it not long before. There had been a lot of blood then, as well.

Professor Flitwick had avoided taking the brunt of the spell after pushing Harry out of the way simply because of his small stature. The spell had passed over him, slamming into the back wall of the classroom. The small man drew his wand and held it at the ready, staring out of the broken doorway at the much taller man.

"Severus, what is the meaning of this?" Professor Flitwick's voice left no doubt of his anger at having a student in his classroom with an injury caused by a teacher. An injury that would have surely been fatal had the small teacher himself not been able to push Harry out of the way.

"This doesn't concern you, Filius. Send Potter out, or I will go in there and extract him." Snape's voice was tense, and he was panting. Between the chase through the castle, the spellcasting and his increasing anger, his body was likely exhausted.

"I think it most definitely concerns me when I have a bleeding student on the floor of my classroom. Make no mistake, _you_ interrupted _my_ study group with this attack."

Harry staggered to his feet, clutching his forearm to his body. His shirt was smeared in his own blood, and the blood from his arm began to seep through his fingers and fall onto the floor. His glasses had fallen off of his face at some point, and he was having trouble seeing much, be he did know that there had been quite a few students in the room with the small Charms professor before he barged in. One of those students rushed toward him and cast a spell that made his arm begin to tingle before it started to numb. He could feel the blood flow slow as Professor Flitwick and Snape continued to argue.

"He needs to answer for what he's done, Filius. I have had enough of him avoiding taking responsibility due to a biased staff shielding him. I will not allow him to be protected any longer. Move aside, or I will move you." Snape was shaking as he clutched his wand tighter in his hand, knowing that the former dueling champion turned Charms teacher would not yield.

Professor Flitwick looked back at the students he had been tutoring and all but barked orders at them, his voice coming out clipped and authoritative. "All of you, move into the corner onto the couch and keep out of the way of the spells. Su, see what you can do about that wound. Terry, keep everyone shielded just in case." And with those words, the small man straightened his shoulders, gripped his wand, and marched out of the door. "Then you will simply have to move me, Severus. Though I promise you, I shall not be moved easily."

Harry felt himself being magically lifted and moved, and the world swam back into focus as his glasses were slid back on his face. Dark eyes watched him, and given the blue and bronze tie around her neck, he could only assume it was Padma Patil looking back at him. Her eyes were glistening but she tried to flash him a smile, which didn't work well but he appreciated the gesture. She disappeared from his field of vision, though he heard her conjure a pillow and place it under his head.

"Bollocks…what kind of spell is this? It's refusing to respond to the mending spells that I've been taught. Nothing is working!" A soft, though panicked, voice said from his side. He turned his head and saw a dark-haired girl pulling at her hair in frustration. "It's not responding to any of my spells, and I haven't learned how to conjure medical gauze yet. I…I don't know what to do." It was clear to Harry that the girl, who had to be Su Li, was beating herself up about her inability to treat him.

"Cloth." Su's head darted up and stared at Harry, clearly confused by what he meant when he spoke. "When I was younger, I'd use old shirts to wrap up injuries." Sitting up, Harry's eyes darted around before landing on the pillow Padma had conjured. The girl had conjured up a pillow reminiscent of the ones used in the Hospital Wing, so it was wrapped in a crisp white pillowcase. Pulling it off, he held it out to Su with his good arm.

"Harry, it won't last very long because it's conjured…" Padma interjected, but even as she was saying it, she had taken the pillowcase and began casting Severing Charms on it, making long strips of cloth.

"It doesn't need to, Padma. Just needs to last long enough for the Professor to give us the all clear to get him to the Hospital Wing." Harry looked up to who had just spoken to find Terry Boot standing to the side of the couch, his eyes alert and his wand out. He glanced down and nodded at Harry, before going back to looking toward the door. "What was that all about, Harry? We knew Snape didn't particularly like you, but none of us could have expected that he'd attack you. Training drill?"

"I sure in the bloody hell hope not! What kind of drill do _you_ know of that almost kills one of the people in it, Terry?" Padma stood and moved around to sit on one side of Harry as Su moved to sit on the other side next to his injured arm. Su wrapped the arm quickly, applying sticking charms to the bandages after the first layer.

"No, it wasn't any training drill…" Harry's voice failed him as he remembered Snape's face as he observed Harry kneeling over a dying Draco Malfoy. "There…there was so much blood." Snape shoving Harry out of the way to check Draco's pulse had allowed Harry to get toward the door, and had been the head start that likely saved the boy's life. Snape had started sending curses at Harry not seconds after finding no evidence of life in the blonde Slytherin boy, and it was only the distance created by Snape's shove that allowed Harry to get out of the way. From there, the shock had disappeared in the face of fear.

"He's in shock." Su stated matter-of-factly, before she stood and helped Padma lay Harry back down on the couch. Harry realized that he had never heard Su Li's before her recent bout of speech, and could only wonder if it was because of her silence, or his lack of noticing. She had on a winter cloak that was much too big for her short frame, and her short dark hair moved with her, showing glimpses of her neck between her hair and the neck of the cloak.

She walked toward the door with her wand held to her side, but before she could get too far, Terry moved and wrapped her up in his arms and pulled her back. His voice was soft as he spoke to her, but in what seemed to be an artificial silence to the room, Harry could hear him. "The Professor told us to stay back, the spells they are throwing around are probably pretty dangerous. I don't want you getting hurt."

"But what if he's hurt?" Her voice was shaky and her fear was evident to Harry, someone who had never heard her speak before.

"You know how skilled he is. And you know he'd never forgive himself if you got hurt in collateral damage. You know _I'd_ never forgive myself. He told me to protect everyone." Su nodded and turned into Terry's embrace and let him walk her back to the corner.

There was an uncomfortable silence, before Terry spoke again in an offhanded manner. "Battle's picking up. More and more spells getting tossed around." Padma nodded and Harry sat up so he could see the flashes of light that had increased in both intensity and frequency since he was given his glasses back. "Amazing to see how rapidly the both of them can throw out spells nonverbally. I couldn't keep up that pace verbalizing all of my spells, but they do it without a word. I hope one day I can be nearly as good as the Professor is now, never mind how good he was while in the Circuit…"

Terry's voice caught as Professor Flitwick's voice rang out for the first time since he had left the room. "Severus, _no_!"

All four of the students in the room turned their heads toward the door as one, and watched as a disheveled, panting and obviously worse for wear Severus Snape ran into the room, his left arm hanging limply at his side. His dark eyes darted around, before they landed on Harry and he raised his wand. "You won't get away with this, Potter. I will make sure of it!"

For his part, Harry began acting as soon as Snape had turned to face him. Holding his wand as best he could in his injured and bandaged arm, he used his left arm to push Padma behind him. Terry was still holding Su, and Harry was glad that they were out of the way enough that they would, hopefully, not be hit by any crossfire.

A shield shimmered up around Harry, and he looked over to see both Terry and Su holding their wands, the magical trails from their wands into the shield were swirling and spiraling around each other. It was a form of tandem shielding, and they were projecting the shield solely in front of Harry. This left them unshielded, but keeping him well protected from quite a few powerful spells. However, judging by the look of extreme rage on Snape's face, he had no intention of petrifying and binding Harry. This was proven as he began to incant the Killing Curse.

Padma gasped and Harry moved to slash his wand, hoping that he would be able to get off his spell in time to interrupt Snape's spell. And failing to do that, then he hoped he would be able to complete the cast in enough time to still be able to dodge the Unforgivable.

Just as Snape was finishing his casting, and as Harry had started to move to the side, his spell still unfinished as well, the diminutive Charms professor reappeared and made his presence known, powerfully.

The door that Harry had previously bowled over in his attempt to escape Snape went from lying just inside the doorway, to careening at frightening speed toward Snape. The Banishing Charm from the half-goblin teacher was powerful, amazingly so. In the fraction of a second that the block of wood took to slam into the enraged Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, it had picked up enough speed to actually lift the man from his feet and carry him along into the far wall. The impact with the stone wall snapped his spine, and the force with which the door sandwiched him against the wall, ruptured most of the organs in his lower torso.

The severity of his injuries made no difference, however, because the force of impact from his head slamming into the wall had been devastating. The stone had no give, and the back of Severus Snape's head had all but exploded, painting blood, pieces of skull and bits of brain in all directions along the wall of the Charms classroom.

Filius Flitwick walked slowly into the room, his wand dangling from his small fingers and almost scraping the floor of his classroom. His body would shake every few moments, but outside of his beard being noticeably lopsided due to one side being clipped just a bit below his chin, he showed few physical signs that he had actually been in a magical battle that ended up being fatal for one of the participants.

Terry rushed forward and held a hushed conversation with his Head of House before running out of the doorway and down the corridor. Su moved over to the dead professor to check on his body, cataloguing his injuries on a sheet of parchment while appearing incredibly sickened by the destroyed man's head.

Across the room, Padma seemed torn between rushing to her Head of House, and staying and watching Harry. Harry, for his part, appeared in utter shock. Not long before, Severus Snape had been chasing him through the hallways of the school, firing spells and attempting to kill him. The man's destroyed head laid not many feet away from him, and it was a chilling image for the boy. He didn't know how he got there, but he found himself sat back down on the couch with his head in his hands, and the next time he looked up, the room was filled with staff members and Aurors.

Professor McGonagall had been standing guard over him, and no one was allowed to approach to question him without having the Scottish teacher affix them with her glare and turn her wand on them. Madame Pomfrey was kneeled in front of Professor Flitwick. The latter, for his part, sat on a tall stool and stared vacantly at the wall that Snape had impacted, which had been cleaned of any evidence of the man's impact.

The matronly nurse tapped the small man on his knee and seemed to whisper to him. Professor Flitwick looked up and over toward Harry, before he hopped off of the stool and waved his wand in an offhanded gesture, causing the stool to disappear from existence. The two walked over to Harry, stopping for a moment in front of Harry's Head of House. The woman knelt down and spoke in hushed tones with the small Charms professor, before wrapping the man in a tight hug. He hugged her back, his small arms grasping almost desperately at her as his body shook.

"Get it out, Fil." Professor McGonagall said in a surprisingly gentle voice. Professor Flitwick, for his part, remained in her arms for only a short time. As he moved away from her, the two teachers locked eyes for a long moment before Flitwick smiled, straightened his back, and walked toward Harry. The small man joined Harry on the couch and they sat together in silence for a long moment.

"Are you alright?"

The silence returned for a moment, before Professor Flitwick's laughter rang out, and Harry found himself joining in, in spite of the somber mood. The Aurors glanced over in confusion, before shaking their head and going back to the quiet discussion. Professor Flitwick patted Harry on the knee before turning on the couch to face the boy. "Sorry about that, Mr. Potter. It is just so much like the descriptions of you that I have heard from my house. Even with you sat there injured, the first words out of your mouth are in inquiry into my wellbeing." The return of the man's jovial smile was a welcomed sight for Harry, who found himself smiling as well.

"Well, I must say that I am doing much better after that bout of laughter." He met Harry's eyes and smiled comfortingly. "I must ask, however, how _you_ are doing? I mean, seeing someone die right in front of you, albeit someone looking to take your own life, has to be difficult. I am aware of the fact that this isn't exactly something new for you, but seeing it in such a…bloody way, has to be traumatic. Especially having that person end up being a man you've known for all of these years."

Harry was silent for a long moment, before he looked away from the teacher. "Two."

"Excuse me?" Professor Flitwick leaned forward, motioning his hand for Professor McGonagall to come near. "Could you repeat what you just said?"

Harry stared off to the side for a long moment before he turned and looked over toward Professor Flitwick. He started for a moment upon seeing his Head of House now kneeling next to the Charms professor, but he squared his shoulders and spoke. "Two." He was silent again, but before his teachers could speak again, he was speaking again, rambling in stilted, fragmented sentences. "Draco Malfoy is…he's in the second floor. Girl's lavatory."

Madam Pomfrey gasped, and Professor McGonagall caught eyes with the woman for a long, loaded look. Madam Pomfrey rushed from the room after stopping and speaking quickly with the Aurors, a pair of the Aurors rushing after her. Harry, for his part, hadn't stopped speaking long enough to notice. "I…I can't much remember what happened. But he tried to use The Cruciatus Curse on me, and I acted." Harry looked down, staring at his shirt before pulling at it, as if it touching him was causing him pain. "Blood…So much blood. He. He stopped breathing. And then Snape came in. He checked him…There was just so much blood. I slipped trying to move. Fell in it. Then…"

Harry stopped talking again for a moment before standing up. "He _cried._ It was weird. And then he was cursing." Harry lifted up his shirt, the expected pink tint to his chest from the blood seeping through his shirt was apparent. However, there was a line of dark red blood dragging down his side. "He hit me, barely. Chased me through the halls." Harry wiped at his eyes with his shirt, before realizing that he was simply smearing blood over his face.

"Harry, you can cry, it's alright…" Harry's Head of House stood and moved to stand with him, but he stopped her with his gaze. She was shocked at how utterly devoid of sorrow his eyes were, shocked enough that her breath caught.

"I'm not crying, Professor. I have a terribly bloody headache though." There was uncomfortable silence, before Harry sat back down, sighing heavily. "I can't make myself cry over it. But I don't like it. I _don't_ like the idea of killing another student. But he attacked first."

One of the Aurors who had run off with Madam Pomfrey stood in the doorway, seemingly unsure of what to do. His superior, who had been standing by just within listening distance, moved toward him and they spoke in hushed tones. The man walked over and stood in front of Harry, his shadow ominously cast over the boy.

"Mister Potter, if I might have a few minutes of your time, I have some questions I'd like you to answer for me." Harry looked up and observed the man. He had a gruff voice and a scraggly beard, with sunken-in eyes. Something about him rubbed Harry the wrong way, and his dislike of the man was cemented when the Auror eyed the two teachers.

The professors, for their part, refused to be banished. "As Harry's Head of House, as well as the Deputy Headmistress of this school, I'd actually prefer it if you would wait until we've finished speaking to him."

"Lead Auror Johnson, ma'am. And I am on a tight schedule, and don't have much time to stand around waiting for Mister Potter to decide what story to settle on for this. We have two dead bodies in one night, and him at the site of both deaths." The man shifted his stance, before looking directly at Harry. Harry looked right back, refusing to quail at the sight of the sickly looking man.

It would seem that his dissent was contagious, as, first McGonagall and Flitwick refused to move as well. "Well, Mister Johnson, it would seem that we won't be leaving. So if you have something to ask Mister Potter, I would suggest that you begin your questions now, as it is past curfew and he needs to get his rest."

Lead Auror Johnson was far from pleased at his treatment and the perceived disrespect he was receiving. He became even more upset when, as he prepared himself to begin his questioning, two forms walked through the door.

"You can go, Johnson. We'll take it from here."

The rage on Johnson's face was intense, as he watched Kingsley and Tonks walk in and relieve him from his case. He cursed under his breath as he walked away from Harry, muttering inappropriate and rude things. He was still muttering when he tried to shoulder past the two new arrivals, and whatever he said did not sit well with Kingsley, who grabbed the man by the front of his robe and pressed him against the wall.

"Would you like to repeat that, Johnson?"

"N…No, sir." The sallow man stammered. His wand had slipped from up his sleeve into his hand, and he was gripping it tightly. "Now if you would please _unhand_ me, instead of behaving like a brute in front of these witnesses, I can go about my day." Kingsley released him, and brushed off the man's shoulders.

"Carry on then, Johnson. And mind the words you speak." Everyone in the room was aware of the threat in Shacklebolt's words. Kingsley walked over toward the group congregated around the conjured couch in the corner of the room, while Tonks stood guard at the doorway. They were quiet for a while before Kingsley conjured himself a simple chair, and sat across from Harry.

"I'm sorry about that display. It has been a long night for me, and I rushed here specifically to make sure that _he_ had nothing to do with questioning you. He and I have some…past issues, and I didn't mean to expose you all to that." The man leaned forward and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingers. Sitting back, he put on a reassuring smile, and looked directly at Harry.

"I'm sure you are getting somewhat tired of repeating this story today, Harry, as I have no doubt that you've already been asked to recount what happened…but I have to ask you to tell your story, just one more time." Harry sighed and placed his head in his hands for a moment, brushing his hair back and unintentionally wiping at some of the blood that he had dabbed onto his face from his shirt.

"I'd just been following him…"

---

Filius Flitwick sat on the conjured couch in his classroom, staring at the empty doorframe. The Aurors had left around midnight, and Minerva McGonagall had left to get some rest around three in the morning. It was rounding the corner toward six in the morning, and the small man found himself seated on the couch next to an equally unmoving Harry Potter.

Filius was initially surprised at how stoic the boy had come off, initially. He had heard stories of things Harry had seen and done in his years at Hogwarts, and could only assume he was somewhat jaded to death. That assumption had survived until the boy's Head of House had left, when Harry sighed and put his head into his hands, and stared at the floor, unmoving, for quite some time. The silence persisted for quite a few hours.

Filius was therefore understandably surprised when, without warning, Harry stood and moved toward the wall that the professor had been killed against. He reached out his hand toward the wall before pulling it away as if realizing the wall was made of fire.

"You're taking this fairly well, Professor."

Filius looked down for a moment, before hopping down off of the couch and walking over to stand next to Harry, both looking at the cleaned stone wall. "As morbid as it may sound, Mister Potter, you do end up getting used to these kinds of things." Harry looked down to the professor and raised an eyebrow. He was greeted with a relatively grim smile, as the man continued to speak. "The Dueling Circuit is… it is a grim place. No matter how many rules and regulations you put on competition, death or serious injury are never very far away. If you stay in competition long enough, it's only a matter of time before you end up seeing someone's life ended."

Filius sighed and looked down toward the floor. "It never does get easier. Especially when you realize that, sometimes, it's also unavoidable."

Harry was quiet, considering the man's words. "I suppose it is, Professor." Filius patted Harry on the knee, before walking away from the wall and back to the couch. Hopping up to sit onto it again, he called out to Harry, motioning for him to come as well. Harry gives a long look at the wall before moving toward the couch and sitting back down. "So you've seen quite a few people die then, Professor? I had no idea that the Dueling Circuit was so dangerous."

"Indeed it is, Harry." Filius took a deep breath, and then looked at Harry. "I tend to keep stories of the Circuit to myself, it's not the type of thing I tend to like to share with my students. Some of my Ravenclaws know from passing anecdotes, but… something tells me that you'll be able to handle the information."

Harry settled back, crossing his legs and looking to the small man.

"Dueling is… Dueling isn't something one can just stumble into. It isn't a sport in the sense that Quidditch is, there are no teams, there are no sponsorships or arenas where multitudes of fans go to observe the matches and cheer for their favorite participant. Before I go any further, I want you to know that, because nothing I'm going to tell you intends to glorify the Dueling Circuit." Harry nodded, somewhat shocked at the vehemence his professor was showing in his apparent disdain for combative magic.

"When I began Dueling, I was only a few years out of Hogwarts. I still had my first wand, I still felt most comfortable in the school robes, and I honestly thought of a life of battling with my magic as something to be considered... glamorous, I suppose the word would be. I can admit now, that I also had quite a chip on my shoulder. I had a point to prove, and I felt that magic would be how I proved that point. If someone wished to speak ill of me, they would do it at their own peril, and those who whispered about the strange-looking small boy, would do so whilst looking over their shoulders.

"Dueling seemed perfect. But I can honestly say, getting into the Circuit was the worst mistake I have made in my life." The man's voice quivered for a moment, before he sat his wand across his lap and folded his hands together over it. "The first time I saw a man die, ripped apart by a hail of summoned spikes of ice, I was sick all over myself. When I resorted to using the same spell not a month later and severely injured my opponent, I didn't think twice as I was carried off of the platform."

Filius stopped speaking for a long moment, looking down at his wand. "I don't mean to make this sound like some disgusting blood-sport, fought for nothing more than to end lives. It's not that. Buried under a lot of blood, there is a certain level of nobility to it. It's simply who's the best. For a long time, I was the best.

"When I left the Circuit, I never wanted to see another Duel in my life."

"Really? Well, that would explain why they didn't ask you to teach the Dueling Club in my second year, and instead had Lockhart and…" Harry trailed off and looked over at the wall, before nodding his head toward the wall and muttering, "him."

"Quite true, Harry." Filius rubbed his forehead with his palm, and then smiled. "I learned a lot of powerful magic on the Circuit. But I am most thankful that I learned important lessons about magic itself on the Circuit." Harry looked at Flitwick, his eyebrows raised and his eyes bloodshot behind his glasses. "It was in my last days on the Circuit, that I decided I wanted to teach. Teaching magic…real magic, the way that it interacts with people, with the world, with _other magic_, it is just so… invigorating! Getting to teach, and all the while, learn something new every day… the prospect just drew me here."

Harry smiled, noting the tone in the man's voice all but screaming out the "but" that was lingering there. And as soon as Filius opened his mouth, he confirmed Harry's expectation. "But the years have grown repetitive." As soon as he spoke, he seemed to be shocked at what he said, and turned toward Harry. "I don't mean to say that teaching is not a joy, I assure you…" He stopped speaking as he saw Harry simply smile at him and nod, as if to ensure the man that he understood. Filius sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "This is not teaching. It is instructing. I tell students what to do, if they do it, they get good marks, if they don't do it, they get bad marks. There is no learning. I just want to _teach _again_._"

The man turned to Harry, who wore a pensive look. "I am sorry to vent at you, Harry."

Harry continued to look bothered by something, but waved off the man's apology, "It is fine, Professor. It's not that, it's just…" Harry trailed off and looked off in the distance. "I understand." Filius motioned for Harry to continue, but he instead shook his head. "I should be heading off to bed, sir."

Filius looked long and hard at Harry. He could tell that something was bothering the boy, but he didn't want to pry. I understand. I would like you to know that you can always come and talk to me, or Minerva, should you wish to." Harry stood and walked, trance-like, from the room, his eyes on the ground. Filius sighed and hopped down from the couch, crossing the room and staring down the hallway. Harry was headed toward his dorm room, when he stopped and stood by a wall, observing a hole in the stone. He stood near it and compared it to his height, and realized that, had the spell hit him, it would have blown a good-sized hole into his head.

Filius conjured a new door and placed it into place, before turning toward his classroom and letting out a loud, heavy sigh. He had killed a man for the first time in a long time. He had hoped to never do so again. But as he had stared out of his classroom at the boy who he had rescued, he knew that he would never be able to rationalize it as the wrong decision.

Brandishing his wand, Filius looked at it for a long moment, before weaving it in a complicated motion, ending in a direct slash toward the ground. There was a heavy thump, as everything that had been in the room seemed to hop and slam into the ground again, many pieces of furniture in completely different locations without appearing to have moved. Desks sat lined up facing the front of the room, Filius' heavy desk returned to its position in the front of the room.

The small man walked over to the far side of the room and stood in front of the large wall covered in bookshelves. Slashing his wand, books from all over the wall slipped from their positions, a seemingly random series of books floated across the room. There were heavy tomes, paperback research printings, decades-old and long outdated magical theory books and new novels among the procession of bobbing and bouncing books, but they all piled up atop each other in such a way as to make something akin to a stairway of books behind the large oak desk that sat in the front of the room.

From atop the pile of books, he looked out over his empty classroom and sighed.

---

Albus Dumbledore had learned many things in his many years of life. One of those things was the belief that, if one expects the world to surprise them constantly, they are actually very rarely surprised. It was the way Albus routinely lived his life. With each turn down the corridor late at night, he would expect Peeves to spring out, singing terribly out of tune songs from half a century prior. So, when Peeves decided to do just that, Albus would nod, and occasionally sing along for half a verse – only so the poor Poltergeist didn't feel unappreciated, he reasoned. Because that was the way he lived, Albus found that he was very rarely shocked by things. That was until the end of the first day of classes after the untimely demise of Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy.

Albus walked into his office from a visit to the kitchens to find the chair opposite his desk occupied. "Filius?"

"Hello, Albus." The small man said. His posture was slumped, his eyes downcast and locked on his hands, which sat folded in his lap.

Shaking off the foreign feel of surprise, the wizened, bearded Headmaster hustled over to sit at his desk to speak with his friend. "Is something the matter?" Both Albus and Filius knew that the question was asked more because it was the normal thing to do, than because an answer was expected. The fact that something was wrong was obvious. "If this is about Severus, then by all means–"

"I apologize for my interruption, Albus, but I must say this before I lose my nerve." At the small man's words, Albus Dumbledore raised one eyebrow before removing his glasses. He placed them gently down on the desktop, folded his hands in front of his face, and leaned forward to show his old friend that he was listening. "Albus… Well, this _is _about Severus."

"As I suspected."

"No, not really." Filius responded. Albus quirked the corner of his mouth at the phrase the man had used. Padma Patil _did _have quite the dry, sarcastic wit to her, and it seemed that Filius wasn't simply teaching his students, but learning from them as well. "See… Well…" Filius took a deep breath and lifted his head, looking directly at Albus from across the large oak desk. "I wish to resign as Charms Professor for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

The words were formal and heavy, and they tumbled out of Filius' mouth and landed in the space between them. The proclamation sat there – immobile – leaving utter silence in its wake.

"Excuse me, but I do not quite understand…"

"It is as I said it. I no longer wish to… _instruct_ Charms anymore." Filius responded. He spoke the word "instructed" with a venom that almost set Albus back, having been far removed from seeing the fresh-from-the-Circuit Filius that had been hired many decades before who had been so filled with vitriol and vigor.

"Is there any way I can convince you otherwise?"

"No, Albus. My mind is made up." Filius hopped down from the chair and turned to leave the office. "This has been a long time coming, and the events of the other night were simply the final straw, as it were. Instruction is just not in me anymore." There was a finality to the tone in Filius' voice that told Albus that he had nothing to gain by continuing to try to dissuade the man, and could lose a good friend if he persisted. Filius had truly decided.

"I see." Albus steepled his fingers and sucked in a slow breath. "I shall begin looking for a new Charms Professor at the beginning of the summer holiday, then."

"I would hope you'd begin far sooner than that, Albus." Dumbledore looked up as this comment in confusion. "I intend to leave the Charms classroom for the last time tomorrow."

Panic lanced through Albus, panic and confusion. He had so many questions, and knew that he didn't have the time to ask any of them. The school was already stretched thin, and he didn't think he would be able to get an interim Charms Professor on such short notice. It was all he could do to find time to keep up with the regular maintenance, considering his duty as interim Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor.

Looking to his friend, who had maintained the slumped posture even after getting to his feet and beginning the slow walk toward the door, Albus felt his confusion fade in place of deep, sorrowful worry for his friend. He and Filius had been good colleagues, and he respected the smaller man a great deal. He couldn't help but note how Filius' slow pace seemed almost funeral-procession-like. With a deep sigh, Albus called out after the man he had worked beside for decades, "Is there anything else I can do for you, Filius? Anything I can offer you? A cup of tea, perhaps."

Filius stopped, but didn't turn around. He was quiet for a moment before his back straightened and he spoke, his back still to Albus. "There is one thing you can get for me, Albus."

"What is that, old friend?"

"The Defense Against the Dark Arts position."

---


	2. The Point of Sacrifice

There had been a house there, once. A very large house.

Sitting on quite a few acres of property, the house had been the picture of opulence. Proof of that excess lay scattered across several of those acres, with the furthest evidence being a golden faucet nozzle embedded in a tree half a mile away from the house.

The cracked and scorched marble archway showed a glimpse of the home's former elegance, as did the shimmering ivory sink that lay in several pieces across the small pile of plaster, gold and mirrored glass that had once been the master bathroom. Even the remains of the grand house would likely be worth a great deal more than many of the fully intact houses in the neighboring province.

A high-pitched whistling sound echoed off of the few walls that remained standing and was carried away by the wind. The sound of rapid pops invaded the air, burying the whistle beneath the loud sound of multiple apparations.

Lucius Malfoy's eyes scanned what had once been his home. Bodies lay strewn haphazardly, covered in burning silk sheets, splintered yew cabinets and shattered stained glass. Blood had covered the cream-colored walls of his study, stained pages of books that were decades older than Lucius himself, and beaded off of the torn leather chair that had sat in Lucius' grandfather's study for many a year.

A stabbing pain lanced through Lucius' chest that caused his body to shake. It had been just over a year since his son's death, a bit under a year since his wife's mental collapse, and he found himself staring at the remains of his childhood home. The sickness rose as he observed the bodies that covered the bed that he had once shared with his wife. Antonin Dolohov was little more than burnt flesh all over the satiny white sheets. He seemed to be missing at least one limb, and his skin was so burned that it cracked and bled.

Every so often, Fenrir Greyback would twitch as the silver spike that impaled him continued to burn him alive. It had once been a beautiful whitewood headboard, once that Lucius remembered Narcissa fawning over for weeks. Pain pierced his chest with increasing frequency as Lucius continue to look around, seeing several more bodies that he recognized strewn across the grounds. McNair crushed under the chandelier in the entryway. Avery's head at an unnatural angle at the bottom of the stairs. Bellatrix dead in the bathroom, her eyes unblinking and alight with the insanity she was famous for.

And in what remained of the kitchen, levitating the brushed nickel teapot off of the fire, sat Albus Dumbledore.

Lucius' eyes darted to the much taller man who stood beside him, unsure of what to do. The man ignored Lucius' imploring, confused gaze, and kept his eyes on the wizened old man sitting at a table in what could only be called a debris-covered warzone. "Hello Tom. Tea?"

Narrowing his red eyes, the man once known as Tom Riddle scanned everything in his line of sight for a long moment before speaking. "What are you doing, Albus?"

Dumbledore was, in a word, a wreck. A long cut bisected his left eyebrow and the skin beneath his eye. Blood seeped down his face and into his beard, coloring half of the mass of his white hair a deep red. His blood dripped onto the table, as his beard was clipped about chest-level in a diagonal slice, which coincided with a long red line visible across the man's deep blue robes. The left lens was missing from his glasses, and the empty section of the frame sat bent and crooked on the older man's clearly broken nose. Voldemort watched the man through narrowed eyes. Something wasn't sitting right. Even as he sat there, coughing blood into a handkerchief between sips of tea, Albus Dumbledore had a bemused smirk on his face.

"What am I doing? Well, my boy, I am simply having a nice cup of tea. Would you care to join me?"

Voldemort regarded the man who was once his Transfiguration professor with wary eyes for a beat, before he straightened his back and stalking forward toward the man. With his long stride, he covered the distance between them in just a few paces, his grip on his wand tightening with each step. When he was just a few feet away from the wounded man, he raised his wand and slashed downward.

A high-backed black and silver chair that could only realistically be referred to as a throne appeared and rocked once before settling across the table from Dumbledore. Voldemort moved to the side and took a seat, slapping his wand down onto the scorched table. A black porcelain cup and saucer rattled onto the table from seemingly nowhere, and stopped its erratic dance in front of the pale, bald man. "I believe that I shall, Albus. One sugar. Please."

Silence reigned as the two men tended to their tea, preparing it slowly, their hands never straying more than a short distance from their wands. Voldemort looked down into his cup, as the water began to swirl with deep grey, whirlpooling at the center to eat away at the small square cube of sugar that sat at the precise center of the cup. A rattling sound drew his attention, and he looked up to see Dumbledore's hand spasming as the man attempting to lift his cup from the saucer, the liquid spilling down the sides and onto the destroyed table.

Voldemort looked at the man before him. The man who had taught him decades before. The man who had opposed him years later. The man who had seemed to be larger than life, even larger than magic itself, once upon a time. Reduced to magically levitating his cup of tea to be able to drink it.

Despite his broken down appearance, Voldemort made no foolish assumptions that he was staring at a pitiful creature. He was aware of that the moment he had apparated in. The smell of burnt flesh still hung in the air, just beneath the scent of the tea and the metallic taste of blood.

"You're dying, Albus."

"That I am, Tom."

The silence returned as the two men continued to sip from their cups. In the silence that resulted, Voldemort found himself musing that the last time he had had a cup of tea had been on his final day of Hogwarts, while sitting across from the very man in front of him. He had been invited to have a cup of tea with his professor, and discuss his plans for after Hogwarts. Several decades and a new body later, there they sat again, a table between them and the same lemon-tinged tea in each of their cups.

The silence continued for some time, until it was interrupted by Dumbledore levitating his cup up and into the cracked and tilted brass sink that was collapsing into the marble countertop that had once cradled it. Realizing that the time for tea had ended, Voldemort banished his empty cup with an offhanded motion and looked to the man sitting in front of him expectantly.

"So, you wished for me to take you out of your misery? I am honored, Albus, and I would be more than happy to end your life."

Dumbledore stood shakily and used the table to assist him in standing up straight. "That has always been one of the biggest differences between the two of us, Tom. While you fear death, I welcome it." Dumbledore looked down at the man who was once his student, and smiled weakly.

The waning sunlight glanced off of metal, and Voldemort dove to the side as the transfigured table they had been sitting at slammed into the crumbling wall behind him. Barbed spikes tore out chunks from the wall as the heavy table pulled itself free under its own weight.

Blasting the chair he had been sitting in as the armrests attempted to ensnare him, Voldemort fired a wide arrow of sickly grey light toward Dumbledore. It got within three feet before it was transfigured into a flock of birds that flew harmlessly passed the older man. Launching a barrage of magic toward the old man, Voldemort yanked his wand down and collapsed a small overhang of ceiling down.

Strafing to the side, Dumbledore's right knee gave out during one of his steps. Coughing and spraying the floor with blood, he raised his wand and waved it above his head, just in time to shield from a hail of small steel blades raining diagonally at him. The blades imbedded into the silver shield, before melting into the mass of metal that flowed down to block the next group of spells. With a twist of his wand, Dumbledore sent the malleable metal whipping around him in a maelstrom of glinting silver.

Voldemort fired several spheres of light green magic toward the twisting shield, just to watch them be deflected off into the distance, creating craters in the grounds and decimating several trees behind the property. Shifting his focus, Voldemort took to forming several pieces of rubble into shields and muttering fortification chants on them. He finished not a moment too soon, as the metal shield surrounding Dumbledore suddenly fired toward him. The red-eyed man called one of his barricades to protect him, the wave of molten metal slamming into it. The fortified countertop held for but a moment before the liquefied silvery steel swept around it on all sides and moved in to attack.

Swinging his wand wildly, Voldemort's barricade followed his hand movement, folding backwards on itself to roll with the impact. Silver spikes shot around the countertop and imbedded themselves in the walls, creating a sharp cage around the man. Turning to the side and severing many of the spikes on the side, Voldemort had to slash his wand suddenly to sever the silver spikes that had blasted through the barricade. He was able to deflect most of the attack, but was unable to avoid one spike in particular that imbedded itself into his offhand.

Banishing the severed silver spikes toward his opponent, he narrowed his eyes at the spike that protruded through his hand, raising his wand to banish it from his hand. Before he could so much as begin, the bloodstained spike flattened into a silver coating over his hand, and twisted.

Seething, Voldemort launched a score of grey, blunt-nosed lances of magic toward Dumbledore. As the magic crackled and gave off the smell of burning ozone, a morbid shock filled the Dark Lord as he regarded his pale hand lying on the cracked floor. Surrounded by a pool of deep, nearly black blood intermingling with shimmering silver, the most glaring visual was the clear appearance of the tile through the large hole in the middle of the palm.

Rage shook the man as he pressed toward Dumbledore, firing spiraling purple and brown bolts of magic that made the walls explode as they were deflected away. Fire leapt across the walls from a redirected stark white spell, the flames crawling across the crumbling wall toward Dumbledore as if alive, leaving a scorched path in its wake. As Dumbledore magically blasting the section of the wall into the distance, Voldemort launched several black spears of magic before slicing downward with his wand, sending a fissure through the expensive, blood-stained tile that covered the floor. The sound of cracking ceramic was buried under the roar of the earth rushing up toward Dumbledore.

Diving to the side, Dumbledore barely got a weak magical shield up in time to block the piercing black blasts of magic that were corkscrewing toward his downed body. Several of the lances slammed into one point on the shield and seemed to pry it open like thin black hands, providing an opening for a spiraling grey and orange corkscrew of a spell to shoot through. A piercing pain shot through Dumbledore's already bloody chest and out from his back, denting the wall behind him. Blood poured from Albus' mouth as he swung his wand in a wide arc in front of him, drawing the very earth from beneath the house up into a towering wall of earth, tile, clay and cement.

Voldemort's spells impacted the wall of earth until chunks of ground and chipped ceramic came hurtling through it toward Albus. With a wave of his wand, the earth and tile were transfigured into small strips and blocks of metal, which were fired back at the wall and magically adhered there. Dumbledore continued attempting to reinforce his barricade until it was almost entirely made of metal.

Dumbledore stood shakily and began to magically turn the patchwork metal wall into a dome around him, pulling material from all over the kitchen, transfiguring it in mid-flight and sealing it to the growing barrier. Suddenly, the temperature around him dropped sharply and the metal of his barricade turned a faint light blue color from frost. The temperature immediately spiked in the other direction, heat rushing over Albus as a web of huge, gaping cracks shot out across his large metallic fortification.

Immediately slashing his wand downward and creating a steel shield that folded out in front of him like an opening fan, Dumbledore dropped down to hide behind it just in time for the behemoth of metal that he had been constructing to explode with the dull thump of a powerful burst of magic slamming into the cracked shield and utterly obliterating it.

Shrapnel whizzed by the shield that Dumbledore had creating, but from behind it he waved his wand in an intricate pattern. Lead pipes leapt through the decimated floor and liquidly become twisting grey snakes that strike at Voldemort. As he slashed and struck with his wand, battling the strikes of the lead serpents, Dumbledore's wand continued to weave as he yanked the brass sink from the marble incasing and summoned it with all the strength he could. Voldemort wasn't aware of the heavy structure until just before it slammed into him. He was able to avoid the crushing impact that would have likely destroyed his spine if it didn't cut him completely in half, but he felt a crushing pain in the side of his body as the impact slammed into his side.

From behind the shield, Albus Dumbledore's body was racked by hard, deep coughs that painted the inside of the shield in front of him with blood. Making a lazy motion with his wand, he magically ordered the lead snakes to attack the downed man, before he fell to his knees and continued to cough harshly.

Voldemort battled the lead snakes off of him and destroyed them with a burst of orange energy from his wand. The tall, thin man known as the Dark Lord dragged himself to a standing position. Cuts and scrapes littering his arms and face, the largest being one that ran across his pale forehead and was dripping blood into his right eye.

Staggering to his feet, Dumbledore dispelled his fan shield and looked to Voldemort, who was glaring back at the older man. The red-eyed man fired a spell that reduced the brass sink into a puddle of reddish metal that seeped into one of the huge holes in the ground before he wiped at his face, smearing the blood across one side of it and clearing his eye from the constant drip. Narrowing his eyes at Albus, he all but growled out, "I _will_ kill you, Albus."

Reaching down and collecting his deep blue, star-studded wizard's hat which had tumbled from his head in his fall, Dumbledore dusted it off and replaced it on his head. Adjusting the cracked glasses that sat atop his broken nose, Dumbledore met Voldemort's angry gaze defiantly. "You may try, Tom."

* * *

Harry stared at the small man across the room. Filius stood on one of the classroom desks at the front of the room, a wicked smile on his face. "Professor-"

"Filius, Harry."

"…Filius," the smaller man nodded in recognition, "I don't understand what I'm supposed to be learning here." Harry brushed his shirt off and spared a momentary glance to his wand. "You're not telling me anything, just having me attack you."

"Harry, what do teaching and instructing correlate to, respectively?" Filius asked.

Harry answered from habit, "When you are taught, you learn. When you are instructed, you memorize."

Filius nodded. "And in cases of battle magic, would you rather memorize, or learn?"

Harry sighed and brushed his hair out of his face, wiping at the sweat on his forehead as he did so. "I understand that. But I don't feel much like I'm learning right now, sir. I feel like I'm throwing the magic I know at you just to watch you shield it and continue to smile at me."

"Failure is one of the best teachers available, Harry." Filius lifted his wand and pointed it before him like he was brandishing a sword, and he smiled widely at the boy across the room from him. "Now, begin again. One more round, and then we will have something to eat while we discuss more Conjuration Theory." The small man laughed to himself as Harry groaned.

As he took to shielding Harry's spells, Filius smiled to himself. He was truly enjoying himself, and as much as he knew that Harry hated the _idea_ of theoretical discussions, the boy was actually quite good at it. At least, good at what passed for Theory with Filius.

Shielding one of Harry's stunners, Filius' eyebrows raised as he had to hop from one side of the desk to the other as he watched his shield be burst through by a small, grayish-white spell that took him a moment to recognize. Slashing his wand to send Harry's next spell off into the distance, Filius held up his offhand, palm-forward, as a sign to Harry to stop casting. Hopping down from the desk, he weaved his wand as he walked away from Harry, hearing the boy trot forward to fall in stride.

With a shake of his wand, every bit of furniture in the Defense Classroom hopped up a few inches off of the ground as one. And when the sound of heavy wood hitting the stone floor sounded, the desks and chairs were gone, replaced with a pair of comfortable couches facing each other, a small coffee table between them.

Taking a seat on one side, Filius looked at his student and smiled. "That was an interesting choice of spell, Harry."

The boy blushed and looked away. "Sorry, sir."

"Oh, don't be sorry. You have nothing to apologize for. Nothing at all." Filius nodded in thanks as a house elf popped in and placed a tray of sandwiches and a pair of goblets filled with pumpkin juice on the table before popping out. "I _would_ like to know your reasoning, however."

Harry leaned forward and took a sandwich from the pile and began to eat it. He was ravenous after the hours he spent in the exercise Filius had tasked him with for the day, and it showed as he devoured the sandwich with haste. "It's just that…" he trailed off and looked down for a moment, before sighing. "Household repair charms aren't blocked by shields."

A huge smile spread across Filius' face as he looked at his student. "Indeed they aren't." They sat in comfortable silence for a while as Filius considered what Harry had come up with. Filius hadn't ever even considered the possibility of using household charms to bypass a shield and knock an opponent off-balance. He knew that he had made the right decision when he began to teach Harry.

It had been the perfect opportunity for them both. Filius was riding the high of the first week of his new position, and the control over what he taught that it afforded him, which Harry seemed to be slipping further and further away from everyone else in his year. He had problems with his friend, Hermione Granger, and the girl had made it very clear that she was far from happy with him. Filius had had to bear witness to one of their fights, and had ended up taking quite a few points from Gryffindor afterwards.

He had also given Hermione Granger her first detention since her first year at the school.

"Question if I may, Harry?" The boy in question looked up to his teacher and nodded quickly in acknowledgement. "How did you come to this realization."

Harry smiled wickedly at the question. "Dobby," he replied enigmatically, and returned to eating. Filius laughed goodheartedly at Harry's silence. After Harry finished his sandwich, he straightened up and spoke again. "He's been helping me practice with my casting and my aim. Recently, I've been working on shielding as well, so he'll cast small little spells at me and I'll shield them. He can't do much, but he's the best practice I can get lately. At one point, I ended up knocking over my lunch goblet. Dobby magically repaired it, right through the shield I had set up to defend against him."

"Interesting."

"From there, it was just trying to find a use for the information. You standing up on the desks was the best time I could think of, because your footing wasn't as stable as it would be if you were standing on the ground." Harry said, gaining confidence in his explanation. "If you had been standing on the ground, you could have just stepped to the side. But if I could push you off balance, even if just for a moment, then I could hopefully follow up."

Filius smiled brightly at his student. Wiping off his mouth, the small man banished the empty plate of sandwiches and goblets before addressing his student. "Harry," Flitwick smiled brightly as he looked to the boy, "I think you may be my favorite student."

* * *

There is a certain kind of presence to magic when there is enough of it in one place at one time. Most witches and wizards never quite become aware of that fact after their first week in Hogwarts, as the school is such a crushing example of high levels of ambient magic, that they become desensitized to the feel of large amounts of it at a young age.

Albus Dumbledore felt his blood beading down his forehead as he poured more and more magic into the huge shield that loomed in front of him, protected him from the overbearing onslaught of Voldemort's magical attacks. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and his vision in his one remaining functional eye was fading, but he kept his wand pointed firmly at the shield and kept forcing incantationless magical energy into it. The spells were fast and heavy, slamming into the metallic shield with an impact so thunderous that the ground beneath Albus' feet shook.

There was a heavy "_boom"_ sound from the other side of the shield, and Albus' arms buckled and he fell back as a heavy, intense impact slammed into his shield and began to bore through it. Jabbing his wand toward his shield, Albus' eyes grew heavier and heavier as his body continued to weaken and give out. He was continuing to live off of sheer willpower and stubbornness, and as time passed and his parries and blocks grew more sluggish and more easily bypassed, he was growing more and more aware of that. With a swipe of his wand, Albus Dumbledore folded the top half of the huge shield he had erected back on itself, the metal flowing like shifting sand, and the shield collapsed backwards. It settled over him, more of a sideways tunnel than a dome. Albus panted as his shielding ran with heavy thumps in a sound similar to a huge bell being slammed. His ears rang, but he hadn't the energy to spare to attempt to dampen the sound, or even raise his hands to his head to block out the sound.

A heavy cough racked his body once more, and flecks of blood painted his hand. Albus winced and wiped his hand off on his robe, and let out a ragged sigh.

The man had lived for over a century. He had seen many things that brought him pain, and many things that could still bring a smile to his face, even decades removed from the memory itself. Though he had never had a true family of his own, he had always, at least in some way, seen the children who entered and exited the doors of Hogwarts as his own. His to nurture, to teach, to guide and lead out into the world.

As Albus Dumbledore drew his magic to him, the low hum filling his ears so intense that he had to clench his jaw so his teeth didn't rattle, he set aside some of his waning energy to adopt something as close to a smile as his battered face could manage. Stepping out of the tunnel he hid behind and preparing to unleash the last spell he would ever cast, Albus had no regrets.

The faucet nozzle on the tree half a mile away was scorched a bitter black by the rush of heat just moments before the tree and all of its neighbors were reduced to kindling as the ensuing burst of magic washed out like a wave.

* * *

The world was bittersweet, Harry mused.

He couldn't exactly fault his peers as they celebrated the apparent destruction of the self-styled Dark Lord at the hands of Albus Dumbledore, but at the same time, he couldn't join them. The supposed victory tasted sour, and the blaring music and the drinks that flowed seemed out of place.

When he had stood and walked out of the party being held at The Burrow, he was acutely aware that no one had noticed him leaving. He walked out to the edges of the wards and disapparated, spinning back around to find himself standing to the side of a small couch. Across the room Filius Flitwick sat in the company of a dim lamp, a cup of tea held in one hand, and his wand in the other. The small man inclined his head just slightly to his student, and offered him a place to sit. Harry settled down on the couch, and enjoyed the relative silence of the man's home.

The silence stretched for a few minutes before Filius set down his cup and looked at the boy across from him. Harry hadn't slept much since the news went public, Filius could see that in the bags under the boy's eyes. But he could also see the rigid resolution behind those same eyes. Clearing his throat, Filius spoke. "Not in much of a partying mood I see, Harry."

Harry shook his head in answer. "Doesn't seem right."

Filius nodded in response, understanding fully. He had seen a similar reaction from Minerva after the celebration of the end of the First War. "All wars are pyrrhic in victory. The only ones that aren't, are the ones that are never fought, Harry," Filius imparted. "And trust me," the man chuckled, "I know _all _about winning, and then questioning if it was worth it afterwards." Something about the casual mention of The Circuit stirred something in Harry. It drove home just how bad things were, that Filius was willing to make a joke at the expensive of what was generally considered to be the darkest time in his life.

"That's the thing, sir," Harry said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, the beginnings of a headache started to form. "In all true wars, _someone _has to fight. And… and I think I've had enough of being the one on the sidelines who has to attempt to mourn those who are lost. It seems far too…" Harry trailed off, searching for the right word.

"Helpless?" Filius offered.

Harry nodded, "Yes, I suppose. I'd rather fight and risk losing than wait for someone else to win or lose on my behalf."

Filius sat forward in his chair and was silent until Harry met his eyes. "He wasn't fighting on your behalf, Harry. That war was not yours to have to fight." The small man attempted to reassure his obviously distressed and distraught student. It didn't work.

"That war was everyone's." Harry was silent for a moment, looking down at the worn carpet. When he looked up at Filius again, the man was taken aback by the intensity in the boy's eyes. "And it isn't over." Something in Harry's voice made Filius sure that Harry believed that, whether it was true or not.

Nodding to himself, Filius hopped down from his comfortable chair and turned away from Harry. "Then I suppose we had better make sure that you're ready to fight for the next one, shouldn't we?" And with those words, Filius began to walk toward the back of the house, out onto the grounds. Harry lifted himself from the couch and clutched his wand with a hard grip.

He nodded to his teacher's back and began to follow. "Yes, we should."


End file.
